Canary Eyes
by Malice Shaw
Summary: You just never know how many lives you can hold in your head.. Or in the palms of your hands. Cloud/Tifa/Aeris angst.


**_ Inspiration and crap: Late night/early morning music, Marlboro Reds, deadly cheese graters, and writer's block. Yes, I know, I need help. But the voices keep me company._**

**_Synosis and crap: You never know just how many lives you hold in your head.. or in the palms of your hands._**

****

**_Canary Eyes_**

The color of storm clouds barely held in at bay, shimmering sweetly, glistening like morning dew, beautiful, shining, like her eyes, shining, dancing, shimmering, green. Green, like life, life, that flows through the blades of grass that stifle cries when you crush them, or the leaves of a rose that that hold the morning dew as the skies above glisten silver, glisten the color of silver of storm clouds, barely held at bay, with the auburn color of a burnt rose, it's petals falling to a cold floor, ashes welling into a pile of dust, swept away, like her hair behind her ear. Silver, green, auburn, mismatched, yet in the end, fixating, combining, colored all things red. Red, red, like the woman, over there, ribbon in her hair, as she screams, her mouth widens, and then she laughs, as if, being tickled? 

She raises tiny fingers, touching her hair, sifting through the strands with ease. Softness, touching, beautiful moment as she gets down on her knees, and opens her eyes, on the recieving end, and she takes it all with a smile. All with a smile, she takes his length into her body and out, skewering, screaming, inside, not out, as it thrusts through her body in a reign of pain, wracking, convulsing, yet only for a mere split second before keeling over, screaming, screaming, or so he thought.

A smile, perched on her lips, green, shut away for ever, behind closed lids, lips, unkissable, frozen to all who loved them, touched them, slip of a tongue to taste them. Taste of the life behind the green, the red petals she pressed her finger against, silencing herself forever.   
  
She moved with fluid grace, and she danced like leather and lace, and she sang with the most beautiful voice-

-how would You know?-

**(**_I never let her sing, he said, oh how he said it, taunt, careful, cold_**)**

**(**_I took her away, before you could smell her rose, taste her dew_**)**

**(**_I took her away, before all else, you could have her_**)**

 He seemed to taunt him with out words, as he seemingly flew through the air with her grace, stolen at the end of his stick, dancing, singing, silenced forever. 

The green of her eyes shut behind lids that would never bat playfully again, life captured in the death of one who was supposed to live forever. Her  red red lips, fingers pressed against tightly to instil a Faith that had died long ago, calling upon a dead God to heal Mother Earth and her woes. Red, auburn fire, russet curls, matching nothing to the fire inside, dying slowly, embers becoming faint and and losing their luster. The silver, flowing sheet of hair that encombed her, silencing her screams, glimmering in the ancient city's quiet, subtle and beautiful lights, each strand capturing a different highlight in each one. A sheen of silver, encasing the rose, healing seemingly, taking the ash away onto the greater Heavens. 

All things, colored red, Unmoving, undaunting, slow.

In slow motion, she fell forward, all hope lost for life, freedom, savior.

**_(_**_love**)**_

She made no sound, they would later tell, to their children, their grand children, all who would listen with intent, and those who had heard the story over and over, listening until senility set in, and she was forgotten.

Yet he heard her screams.

How could they, when all they could hear were their own?  
  
It was why He smiled down, as he pulled it from her back, and she thrust forward, face down, breathing faintly, before stopping, eternally.

_Stop screaming!_ He wanted to shout, wanted to make them bleed as her own blood ran freely into his palms. _I can't hear her speak!_

_I can't hear her talk!  
I can't hear her heart beat!  
I can't hear her!  
Shut up!  
-Shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutuphutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup-_

Then silence. 

The marrow of her bones collapsing, her heart, no longer beating, breath, becoming a whisper of words never let gone. Her lips opened, just once, and then closed, stained darker than usual, parted slightly, teeth still biting down hard in pain, even in death.

_She was always so so beautiful..._ Words spoken, none will ever come truer. _..Even in Death._

She still spoke to him, in his mind, letting her essense be felt, her soul, tearing from his grip.__

**(**_My body's wet, I'm shutting down_**)**

**(**_I've never seen such eyes.. and hard the flesh_**)**

Silver, silver, he mused silently, fingering the blade flippantly, lingering inside, thoughts, screams, the chants of little children as they ran. Everyone, in his head, talking, pleading, yelling and loving, all with the same purpose. Loss, life, giving and taking, all for the same virtue. Virtue, what is virtue, he questioned, over and over, the handle becoming slick with his own sweat, his joints becoming pullies, liftng, pulling, berating, pulling, taunting, loving, caring. 

Up and down, it went, centimeter, coming closer, then farther, until the shock of cold steel touched his skin, and he gasped, throwing it aside.

_What the fuck am I doing?  
  
_And always, as usual, as if on cue, she would come, see him, bare-chested and vulnerable, scared, alone. And she would sit with him, on the cold, tiled floor, and stroke his hair, murmering sweet nothings that fell on his deaf ears. Her fingers were so cold, so cold, like icicles, trailing across his skull, leaving indented lines of freezing, enriching, shivering blades into his skull, reaching his brain. He could feel a headache coming on, her scent, pure and flirty-

**(**_Rich and inviting_**)**

-smelling- 

**(**_Roses_**)**

-Jasmine mixed with the rusty-

**(**_Beautiful_**)**

-old scent of-

**(**_Gardens in spring_**)**

-scotch, and assorted liquors. She had not any time to shower that night, washing away-

**(**_The blood from her abdomen_**)**

-any reminder of who she was, what she did, like rain down a drain. 

_Cloud,_ She whispered, her voice, reeling his senses, letting him drift, letting him drown. Her fingers, once so frozen, began to warm, drilling into his skull, parting his hair, letting it fall infront of his face in a hazy golden curtain, dimming everything canary in a storm  ridden world. The soft thud of her body when her knee slipped, and she fell forward, instinctivly throwing her arms out to break her fall. His own hands slid out, and he found himself-

**(**_Regretting the knife wasn't still in his possession_**)**

-holding her carefully, in his arms, the soft bend of her back clearly visible in his canary vision, whispers of her hair, spread across the floor, over her shoulders, so dark, like midnight, no stars visible in the darkness of escaping. Barely moving, she was, out of shame, fear, out of yearning, as his hand cupped the soft swell of her breast, thumb methodically stroking it's firm side, her breath quickening. He leaned his head back, closing his own eyes, imagining, fantasizing that his body wasn't betraying him, that she couldn't feel his hands on her, she was immobile, gone, that she wasn't pulling herself from where she was, that she was brushing his hand away with out a word instead of taking its twin and pressing them both against her body. 

_I love you_. Her whispers were clear, although her voice was faltering. Tears drifted down her cheeks in rivers, ever flowing, constant. So quiet, she was, minipulating him, playing his his hands, fingers, shoulders and hair. Warm wetness down below and he couldn't refuse, body refusing his commands, no matter how he screamed them, wanted to. And she always said yes, no matter how he took her on the tile, always, constantly, whether it be a whisper in his ear, or while she drove her nails down his back, pulling bloody red, streaming welts down the tributaries of scars, of muscles that flexed, staining her clear nail polish, adding copper to the smells of sweat, jasmine, and beer.

_I love you._

I know. 

_-I love you-_

Shut the fuck up.

_I love you!_

Fucking shut up already...

_I love you...._

Stop it. Stop it. Shut up. Fuck, shut up

_I love you_

Oh God.. I can't breathe.. 

_I LOVE YOU_

**(**_I can hear what you said, echoing, in my head..._**)**

**(**_And I'm losing myself._**)**

_.i luv u._

Good God, make her stop. Stop me. Stop me from doing this. Stop everything. Stop loving it. Stop enjoying it. Stop thinking it's her, and not her, you fucking psycho, stop it.

**(**_Seething in my head I'm suffering instead I can't remember why this meant so much to me_**)  
  
**You fucking bitch, stop it. Make her stop. Make her stop. Make her stop. 

Hit her, slash her, beat her, rape her, oh God please, just make her stop saying it. 

Make her just fucking shut up. Shut up, God, damn you, _shut the fuck up!_

 And he stifled a groan when she clenched around him, spread her legs wider, thrust her hips farther to meet his. Her hands planted down on the floor, her hair falling in her face, one deft, swift movement sweeping its dark blanket behind her ear. Her head leaned back as a low, gutteral groan escaped between her lips, bangs, falling down into her eyes, shielding. Her body movements reminded him of water, fluid and moving, each thrust she impaled herself on him seemed binding, constricting, squeezing almost painfully. Any sound she made was distorted, gone, behind his eyes, as his mind drifted to another, reshaping, remolding, turning her body into another soul, another demention of any heights. And he looked down on her, in the darkness, with his filmy, canary eyes.

**(**_Wish I died instead of lived a zombie hides my face shelf forgotten memories diaries left with cryptic entries_**)**

"I love you." She whispered, after, covered in a sheen of sweat. Silence then, her panting ceased, no words spoken. He was quiet, in the midst, his breathing shallow, staring through his hair at the ceiling. No retort, no womforting words of reprecussions, nothing, except the subtle rise and fall of his chest to signal that he was alive, and that was enough. 

Gingerly she crept towards him, leaning her head against his chest, and repeated her words, prompting the same, but denied. Again, she said it, nuzzling against his chest, finally feeling secured when his arm wrapped over her bare shoulder and stroked the smooth skin. "I love you."  
  
"Wha-? Oh. I love you too Aeris."

  
She waited until he was fast asleep, his shallow breathing evened out over his bare chest, falling evenly, his shaking subsided, hers resuming, before she gingerly pushed herself away, trailing her fingers over his cheek. He always slept with his eyes parted slightly, and the cerulean blue slits seemed to ease her fears and somehow convince her that he wasn't staring through her at another face, another time, but staring at her, knowing her.

He made love to a corpse, she thought bitterly, as she stood and stepped outside, bare to the shimmering worlds above and beyond. Clasping her arms around her chest she tilted her head back and screamed. 

**(**_Seething in my head I'm suffering instead I can't remember why this meant so much to me_**)**

  
Days past, and then weeks. In his minds eye he still saw shimmering pools of green, beautiful, forever tempting, emerald slits for when she cried out his name. Dark midnight, gleaming charcoal still became burnt auburn rose petals that smelled just as sweet as it's pure counter parts, and pale, pixie like lips became plump, blood red. Large, supple breasts became small and managable, non existant in his palms, and a deep, throaty growls of pleasure became higher pitched gasps. She became her and he never even knew as any other.

The night when she was clean, and she stood infront of the gardens, her hair donned up in ribbons, just to feel pretty he came to her again. Strong hands wrapped around her waist and pulled her close, eminant of arousal, persuasion, touches. One hand past the borderline, one above, gentle, sweet kisses on her neck, and the calm, soothing sound of his voice as he said a name, not hers, but a name, a name long given into the waters of the Ancients, and passed on. Forever, coming, and going, leaving, as if nothing mattered. 

_Aeris.._

She was still live, in his eyes, in her body.

He was so careless with his whispers, his body surrounding hers, engulfing in a tryst he deemed as a sordid twist on love. His hair fell before his eyes again, shielding him from her thoughts. Canary yellow, it was, soft as chocobo fur, she stroked her hands through his hair and cupped the back of his neck to pull his lips closer, and further still, to graze on her skin hungrily enough to insight a small cry of pain. The skin on her neck was sensitive; not like the rest of her body that could handle it's own, but like woven silk it was, dainty and appealing. 

"I love you." She whispered, and he said the same, only using another's name. His hands roughened from battle drifted from her body to her hair, pulling the ribbons free and letting them drift down, falling to the ground like crimson embers escaping into shadows. The skies seemed to darken then, with his hands folding through hers as a gentle breeze carresed the skin he left untouched. She leaned against his shoulder, and he wondered for a heathen of a second of what shoes she wore, she never reached his shoulder before. A split second wasted, he thought, with his Princess of the Thorns, Lady of the Roses. Haphazardly she turned, and looked to the floor, watching the remains of her ribbons, crimson red in the shadows, before he reached down to pick it from the dirty floor and gaze at it's silken flair draped over his hands. 

_Cloud? _Her breathless whisper seemed foreign to him, as he fingered the silken, textured-

**(**_dripping with life fluid_**)**

-ribbon, staring at it's deep color, comparing it to long ago when-

**(**_her blood congealed on his hands_**)**

-She gave him a rose, for one gil, she said, for one gil and you can have-

**(**_my disembowled remains_**)**

-Just this one rose. But maybe, she said coyly, you can also be-

**(t**_he one to bury me_**)**

-My bodyguard?  
  


The waters clouded over when she sank, artlessly beautiful, even in death, with her chest rising and falling due to the waving of the waters, simulating breathing. Even with the green fire of life behind her eyes forever doused by silver, and the burnt auburn of her hair's fighting embers now slowly dissipating into  her watery grave. Even in death she smiled, haunting his dreams late at night when ever he dared close his eyes to sleep. Ruby red lips, uncomparible to the roses she gave, the flowers that died when she lay in her grave, plump and beautiful, compariable to the rose's petal before it shriveled up and died. 

And still he could feel her on him, inside him, letting him know, oh letting him know just exactly how she felt. She was standing right before him, of course, her bare feet with pretty pointed toes clenching the floor in a nervous wake.

Bare feet?  
  
He stood up then, looking into her darkened eyes, clutching her ribbon. Her hands toiled nervously infront of her, out from gardening for the most part of that day. The nails were buffed to a shine but ragged looking, chipped along the edges from wear. She fiddled with unspent energy, her hands wringing, arms pressing to her sides, flared hips into strong long legs. The soft subtle breeze filtered around them, the slit in her skirt spreading out over her left thigh, revealing the strong muscle of a runner, a jumper, a fighter. Her biceps were brimming with feminine muscle, no softness anywhere, just a fighting fascimile of a woman torn. When he stepped forward she took a step back away, watching his hair flow infront of his eyes, Mako blue induced, glowing. 

"You're not bleeding."  
  
"I know."  
  
"You never bled on me."  
  
"I know."  
  
He tensed. "You knew. All along, you knew."  
  
"Yeah. I did."  
  
He looked up at her with the purest blue eyes, swiping his golden locks away from his face. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"  
  
"Because." She said simply, her voice shaking and as brittle as a dead leaf. "I love you."  
  
And he looked up at her then, frowning, staring at her simply then, and seeing her as she was. Her hair, dark as midnight floated around her shoulders like a stormy cloude, and eyes, the color of rich chocolate on a lazy summer day, and her skin, pale in palor, contrasting sharply. Her lips were persed in a straight line, her brow knitting with worry. Her hands reached out to him then, sinfully inviting, and he slapped them away, instead concentrating on draping the blood red ribbon across his palms. It draped, it dripped, and fell through his fingers. He winced then, a dark stabbing in his chest before he walked up and away, leaving her alone. 

Tifa fell to he knees and clasped her arms around her body then, ignring the biting cold that formed. Virginal she looked, her dress of all white ascading around her fallen form in a cloud of white film. She stayed there until early morning, her legs frozen, until the morning sun came out and thawed her. As she pressed her hands to the floor, and pushed herself up from her kneeling position, the rush of blood caused her to fall again, to her side, bringing her face to face with a lone red rose on the icy ground, it's leaves as green as life, it's petals as red as blood, with a single droplet of dew perched on a thorn, the color of stormclouds, barely held in at bay.

**(**_There's no such thing as a winnable war, thats a lie I don't believe any more_**)**

After that she couldn't meet his eyes. Mako induced cerulean depths that seemed to reach farther into the mind than any normal gaze should. He never mentioned it ever, either, instead becoming a mechanical being, refusing to aknowledge his present, coming and going as he pleased. At night she heard his walking, talking, to no one, and she covered her ears with her pillow and forced herself into sleep, his vacant voice haunting her. Sometimes he would cry out in agony, and other times he would murmer softly, his voice imp like and as soothing as a child's laughter. There were moments when she stopped, scared, of the thrashings, of the screaming, and yet when morning came there were no signs of struggle, aside from a few misplaced objects that she knew for sure were not there before. 

It hurt, to say the least, watching him suffer. She could see it in his eyes, the way his hair still fell down infront of them, clouding his vision in a yellow film. At times, when she looked up from her own silent brooading she'd catch him staring at her, his head tilted slightly, supporting his chin with his hand, looking almost child-like with innocence long since gone. Yet when she gave him a subtle hint of a smile he'd turn away, as if realizing she was not who he wanted her to be, and once again she'd feel the darkness sweeping forward again. 

Canary eyes are fleeting, disillusioning, and wrong, she thought to herself, while she violently turned the pages of her book. Through a filmy yellow curtain he saw her with what he wanted, and what he wanted had died long ago. The nightfall had come fast that day, eveningcoming close around four in the afternoon, the sun hiding from her wrath it seemed. Outside the howls of the pained once again rang, and she stubburnly ignored them, flipping the pages of her book harder again, feeling along the rough paper with softened fingertips. A silence fell again, and she slowed down, her jaw aching from grinding her teeth. A sudden, course shrill howl escalated by the drowing calm shocked her deeply, and she turned the page too harsh, causing the paper to slice deeply into her fingertips Cursing, she flung the book aside and stepped out of her room and picked up the first aid kid from the table, deftly ignoring the stinging pain in her hand when she finally saw a glimpse of his fallen form, slumped against the hall way wall.

He was laughing to himself, quietly, his hair unkept and falling over his eyes irregularly, and his face ashen while lips curled into a sarcastic smile. In his hand was the knife from before, the silver blade winking in the dimmest of lights, seemingly taunting her. Down his ams blood coursed in thin red lines, tributaries forming tributaries, smeared and flowing at the same time. She watched in silent horror as he lifted his hand, hidden in the folds of his pants, as he lifted a single, blood red rose, a tiny misted drop of dried blood congealed from contact with the air. The darkest of thoughts came into her mind as she watched him, watched him lift the rose to his nose and smell it's sweet scent delicately, and then laugh, as he let his hand fall back to his lap.

"It's beautiful, huh." He said, almost a whisper. A small white light from the curtain's opening shone on his face, and only then did she realize he was crying.

"Yeah. It is." Carefully she stepped towards him, and kneeled to the floor. Raising a delicate hand, she brushed his hair from his eyes, and stifled a shout as her bloodied finger smeared across his cheek. Quickly she pulled her hand away and stared down into her palm, noting the indian warpaint marks it made."I'm sorry."

"It's okay." His voice was but a harsh whisper now, as he pulled her hand into his. Languidly he placed it on his cheek, never taking his eyes off hers. "You bled on me now."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"I happened."  
  
"What?"  
  
"She died because of me, you know." Almost as if in slow motion, he flipped the knife in his hand once, then again, before a small laugh escaped from his lips. "I might as well have thrown the blade in her back myself."  
  
"That's not true."  
  
"How is it not true?"

For that she didn't have an answer. Instead she merely sat down next to him, and took his mangled arm into hers. "You did this?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"...I don't know."  
  
"I think you do." She was quiet as she pulled out gauze from the case, and gingerly began wrap clean his wounds. "Maybe someday you can tell me."  
  
He was quiet until she moved to dress his other arm, lifted it limply from his side. "Sometimes.." He began, almost conversationally. "Sometimes I can still hear her scream."  
  
She stopped then, hands freezing. He continued coolly, solemnly. "Sometimes I can still hear her scream. You didn't hear her. I heard her. He heard her too. But instead of puling out, he just.. leaned all his weight on the handle. He just leaned all.. his.."  
  
He couldn't continue. Instead, he opted to lean into an embrace she was willing to give. He muffled a sob in his throat, and clenched his fingers around the thorns of the rose, feeling the tiny daggers digging into his skin, pin pricking new holes to bleed through. Quietly he lifted his hand upwards, and gazed ath the disheveled leaves, and both of them watched in quiet amazement as the petals fell from the blooming bud, one by one, landing on his lap and between his legs. Deftly she lifted one from the floor and traced it across his cheek, and then to his lips, before light as a feather pressing her own against them. When she pulled away she saw his eye lids flutter, and then a simple, pure innocent smile grace his lips. 

"It's over." He said quietly. Raising a bruised hand to his face, he brushed his soft hair out of his eyes before letting a soft chuckle escape his throat. "It's over."  
  
She held him tight again, for that night, she felt his arms slide scross her midsection to grip her tightly, as his body shook with audible sobs, and howls that long lingered long after they ceased to esacpe from his his throat. 

Chapters in books always end with a conclusion, she thought, as she ran her fingers through his hair again. Pulling away, Cloud gazed up at her with a grateful gaze, full of awe and wonder, reminding her of the boy she once knew and grew up with.

"Thank you." He whispered, before leaning his head on her shoulder again. "Tifa."  
  
As he made himself comfortable against her relenting body, she watched the bloodied rose, and stared at it's burnt sienna petals, seemingly entranced by the view. Inside her head images and memoried played alongside one another, becoming a jumbled mass of words and visions, closing in one another before combusting. She shut her eyes against the sight of the woman he truely cared for, falling down, a smile perched on her lips, her eyes, vivid and green with life fading while a cloak of silver and midnight surrounding her, and then escaped. Her hands tingled with the feel of the dead woman's cheek against them,, still warm with her former life, and seemingly coming out of her as her aura passed on. Carefully, she reached to the rose and plucked it from it's holdings, twisting it inbetween her finger tips, before his voice halted her actions.

"He took half my soul when he did what he did.." He whispered, reaching up painfully to finger the reminants of the flower. "Oh God I don't wanna lose the rest.."

"You can have mine." Tifa whispered in a voice not her own.   
  
With graditude he leaned against her and sighed. The rest of the night was wrought in darkness, until the morning light came and awoke them with out hesitation, shining down on a broken rose, it's petals torn asunder from the bud, with no dew perched on it's tattered leaves. She sighed then, leaning her head down upon his as soft as the snow falls, and realized then, that there are only so many storms to pass, where the calm comes, and remains.

Yet still, she did not know if this was one.

Pulling him tighter, and closer to her body she felt his roughened hand stroke her shoulder as she silently mourned with him a loss long since gone, but never forgotten.

**_~Fin~_**__

**_A/N: I think nipples that show through white t-shirts on guys are cool._**_  
  
_


End file.
